Random rantings about everything.

The Mass Protest In Little Big City

Where I live, I am in the same city as Westover Air Base. In fact, I could basically just walk about 20 minutes and be standing right at one of the gates to get inside. This might mean nothing to you, except that in recent days it was named a possible housing zone for the illegal immigrant children that they don’t know what to do with that have come from Central America. It’s in a city that people have probably not even heard of outside of Massachusetts. Hell, some places inside Massachusetts doesn’t even know it exists. Though, in a funny note as a resident: Rizzoli and Isles has mentioned it a few times in a few different episodes, including one where they incorrectly stated there was no Popeye’s in Chicopee. There is one, in fact, right on the main drag. Do your research, television writers.

Now that I have successfully gotten off point, we went out to get groceries yesterday there was a protest of not too many people. Probably no more than 40, but I didn’t care enough to count them. They were protesting said plan to bring those children (I won’t refer to them as immigrants or illegals. It doesn’t seem fair to call a child something they do not understand.) to said Air Base. I joked to my husband: “Look, that is the entirety of the Western Mass Tea Party”. We had a laugh, and drove by not really concerning ourselves to them. If you get a 100 people, you’re a protest. If you get less people than I had attend my wedding, it’s just a gathering. no matter how many “Don’t Tread on Me” flags or antique style American flags that existed in the days of slavery you have waving in the storm’s wind. (Side note, I swear the lightning kept striking in the area where they were standing. Sign from God?)

Were they even residents of Chicopee? Why should it matter to them? If they were, then let them be. It is our right as American’s to protest! I don’t care that they were there, they weren’t in my way to the grocery store. I probably wouldn’t have even noticed them if it weren’t for the yellow flags they were waving. “Support our Troops, not Illegals” signs were being waved. I can get behind that. Our troops have fought to ensure our freedoms and safety, they should get better care than they currently get. We could save money by forcing people who don’t feel like working out into the workforce to raise revenue to better treat the troops. That’s a great idea that we’ll never see happen, though the increase in minimum wage makes it less beneficial to just not give a shit, because now they make more than the people living off the system. (Another point altogether).

At first, I had some concerns. I agreed with people saying that we’re stressed enough supporting said people who don’t feel like working now we’re going to have to put resources towards children from other countries too. As a parent of a child in the local school system, I know some of the classes already have 20+ children in them. I don’t want my child to suffer in school because of more of an overflow of children. That was calmed when I found out they would be educated on base. The money part didn’t bother me as much as it should have; we’re already paying for people that don’t need the help, why not take the money from them and put it towards children who are actually in need? I’m a mom, I can’t handle the thought of a child being neglected or mistreated. That sickens me, 100%.

Should we house them? I’m not sure. It’s not my call to make. They have people who know all the facts, but like everything else they never tell us everything. Everyone just tells us enough to sway us in whatever position they want us to go. I don’t fall for that line, and I’m not going to feign outrage unnecessarily because that just makes me look like an ass. An uninformed, uneducated ass. And I’m only guilty of one of those, as are most Americans. I have the mass amount of student loan debt to prove I was properly educated, the uninformed is the politicians and media’s fault.